159. "Stuff" (1996)

The Core

(Tir and Resistance)

[Warning: some “offensive” language and some things may be triggering]

But first – today:

Yes we have been focusing on other things lately rather than our blog. Organizing files and rearranging our furniture. Also, we have been sleeping long hours lately – 10 and 11 hours a night – and feel very sluggish in the morning. Even so, when our energy finally picks up in the day, we feel great. Stoene Boy (6st) and Hartly have been so cute lately. They have decided to be twins. Did we tell you that already? Even though they are a year apart in age they still want to be twins. What that means is they wear the same clothes – which means no dresses. Stoene Boy says he doesn’t want to wear a dress. At least Inside, he doesn’t. Many years ago we all agreed that how we dress on the outside may be different than on the Inside. Obviously most of the guys did not want to wear dresses. Anyway, Stoene Boy and Hartly have been very active lately, chattering away out loud, which often attracts Panda Bear too. She usually comes running to see them. We think it’s our high-pitched voice that does the trick.

We feel very selfish and greedy about our time these days. Not wanting to go to the support group as much, not being with other people as much. Wanting to cocoon, read, watch tv, organize our place. As if we are not getting enough time for just us. Wonder why we feel that way because when we think about it we spend a lot of time alone. Maybe someone Inside is wanting time but we haven’t figured out who and what they need. Oh well, we’ll find out at some point. We always do.

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1996:

Stories are full of “stuff”. Our minds are full of “stuff”. People are full of “stuff”.

Big trouble. Can’t go on with presentation work. Angéla (5) scared shitless we’re saying way too much. Revealing too many secrets. Apparently we are waiting for Serena (5) and family to do something. Their move in this weird chess game.

Meanwhile we’re lost. We can see that we are standing on the path but when we look down we only see our feet and a small part of the path. We are surrounded by a deep dense fog. Direction unknown.

Patience (1) thinks it’s fine that we give the presentation work a break. She says not to worry. But we worry anyway. What if we can’t do it? What if this is just stupid?

Around us lie containers. They hold “stuff”. Our secrets, our memories, our knowledge. They are filled with “stuff”, filled with a powerful essence and they exact a great pull on us. The “stuff” skews our perceptions of things so the world looks wonky from here. The “stuff” skews our emotions so we react to people and things in ways that seem distorted, out of proportion to reality. Extremes that do not fit. “Stuff”.

Angéla has “stuff” in one container. A lot of “stuff”. Serena and the rest of her family have “stuff” in another one, a huge container. The Children of the Thirteen (3) have a container of “stuff”, smaller. Tir (1) has one too. The containers tell us we don’t want to talk anymore right now about our “stuff”. We want to keep those containers closed for now, keep our “stuff” secret. Later we will probably be ready to open them. Maybe at our presentation. Our presentation of “stuff”.

But not right now.

Emerged today. Two more “brothers” of Serena. Michael (5) and Caleb (5).

Angéla does not like her “family”, except for Sean-Charlotte (5). So she “hangs out” with Una’s Brood (4). Has been doing so for years apparently. Others thought she was one of Una’s (4).

Why does Angéla never mention her twin, Heléna (5)? Does she reject her too?

Ruth Ann (5) is a bitch – I don’t mean one of The Bitches (8) either. She is mean and a betrayer. Serena-AnereS does show two faces. One that shows her “lion heart” her determination and anger. Her other side is a weak, passive, side, helpless and ashamed, stuck in The Pit. [don’t know who wrote this]

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The end of July and a beautiful summer morning. Sleeping in the living room, we wake up and the perfume of trees and warm summer air waft in. How absolutely delicious. We go to our back balcony, facing south, and see the sun just coming up in the eastern sky. We can feel the air on our skin, see a sky that is so intensely blue, and hear the birds singing their morning songs. I feel so grateful to be alive this day.

Yesterday was very hard. We couldn’t even get out of the house to get kitty litter, which was desperately needed, or go to the YWCA to get the film for the slides of our artwork for the presentation. More information and more memory comes up. And it’s both Una and Serena who are involved.

We started to draw the Pit on computer because that’s where the pain is now. That’s where the “stuff” is – knowledge, secrets, information. Even though Serena is supposedly out of The Pit now, all of us are in it.

Oh, the Core-Mirror. If you can go behind the Core-Mirror it means you can show two faces or be a shape-shifter, like Serena.

And like Split Face (4).

It feels like we have not given up on doing the presentation. Thank goodness. Just the thought of the artwork we have done can tell so much of our story and that motivates us strongly. And doing the piece on The Pit tells us so much too. It is very much where we are right now and it is part of a memory.

A dream. A little girl in trouble with her mom so we come and show her this place on our left arm, on the inside of our wrist. We know we can’t lift our sleeve higher because we have all these scars up our arm.

The little girl feels like one of us Inside, sort of like Angéla only younger. And her mother seems familiar, a bit like Una or Sean-Charlotte.

Angéla says we are leaking. There are holes in our body and who we are is leaking through. We saw Flash (3) on the street. Serena sat beside us on the bus. Some of us hate the world even the birds trees sky sun. We are nothing becoming nothing. No Self (4) and Dead (4).

July 26, 1996: ... was in tears most of the session and it seemed like grief. She is angry and frightened because she is in such bad shape, “not able to do anything”... A new set of memories and alters are emerging and her tendency is to want to deny them.”